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Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.

Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions—underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 442,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives.

Highlights from Accenture

Meet a Fairygodboss at Accenture

Name

Julie Sweet

Position

Chief Executive Officer - North America

Washington, D.C.

Julie Sweet is chief executive officer – North America, responsible for leading Accenture’s business in the United States, the company's largest market, and Canada. She is also a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.

Prior to assuming her current position in June 2015, Ms. Sweet served as general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer, and was a member of the Global Management Committee. As general counsel, she had ultimate responsibility for all legal support to Accenture, serving as principal counsel to senior leadership and the board of directors and leading the company's Legal department. She also served as corporate secretary.

Prior to joining Accenture in 2010, Ms. Sweet was, for 10 years, a partner in the Corporate department of the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, which she joined in 1992. She led a broad corporate practice at the firm, which included representing underwriters, private equity funds and corporate clients in public and private financings, advising on mergers and acquisitions, and providing general corporate counsel.

Ms. Sweet is a member of the Executive Committee of the Business Roundtable and chairs its Technology, Internet & Innovation Committee. She also serves on the Executive Council of TechNet, and is on the board of directors of the Bipartisan Policy Center, Catalyst and the National Center for Children and Families. In 2016, she was named to FORTUNE's list of "Most Powerful Women."

Ms. Sweet holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College and holds a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School.

Meet a Fairygodboss at Accenture

Name

Kathleen O'Reilly

Position

Senior Managing Director - US Northeast

Philadelphia, PA

Kathleen O’Reilly is a senior managing director at Accenture responsible for leading the company’s business in its US Northeast region, which covers 11 states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia.

In her role as senior managing director‒US Northeast, Ms. O’Reilly focuses on bringing innovation to clients, attracting top talent and strengthening the company’s impact in its local communities. She also serves on Accenture’s North America Leadership Team and Global Leadership Council.

An 18-year Accenture veteran, Ms. O’Reilly has served in a variety of leadership roles in the company’s Communications, Media & Technology (CMT) practice, which serves the communications, electronics, high technology, media and entertainment industries. Before being appointed to her current role in December 2016, she served as senior managing director for CMT within Accenture Strategy, where she focused on helping clients worldwide achieve high performance through profitable growth, accelerated innovation, organizational agility and operational excellence. She was also the Group Strategy and Operations Officer for Accenture North America. Before joining Accenture, Kathleen worked for A.T. Kearney and began her career in the telecommunications industry with Verizon Communications.

Ms. O’Reilly holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She serves on the global board of Women in Cable and Telecommunications and the corporate board of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; previously she served on the boards of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, The Barnes Foundation and Big Brothers Big Sisters (SEPA).

Ms. O’Reilly lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and children.

Meet a Fairygodboss at Accenture

Name

Pallavi Verma

Position

Senior Managing Director - US Midwest

Chicago, IL

Pallavi Verma, senior managing director, US – Midwest for Accenture is responsible for overseeing the company’s business across 13 states including: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. With more than 10,000 people in the region, Pallavi focuses on bringing innovation to clients, attracting top talent and strengthening the company’s impact in its local communities.

Since joining Accenture 30 years ago, Ms. Verma has built a reputation as a trusted and strategic client advisor, a dynamic and genuine leader and has driven significant business growth for the company. Prior to overseeing Accenture’s Midwest business, she served as senior managing director of the State, Provincial and Local Public Service practice in North America – working with many clients across public-sector entities and higher-education institutions to implement complex systems to help them transform their organizations. In addition, Ms. Verma has been responsible for leading global quality and risk for Health & Public Service, where she oversaw quality, client satisfaction and risk management.

Ms. Verma serves on Accenture’s North America Leadership Team, Global Leadership Council and the Accenture Foundation Board. She also serves on the board of Democracy Prep Public Schools, a national charter network, and has been active on several women’s leadership initiatives for Accenture. In 2011, she was a recipient of the Top 25 Consultants award from Consulting Magazine, selected from more than 400 nominees. In December 2016, she was named by the Chicago Tribune as one of their “10 Business People to Watch in 2017."

Ms. Verma earned her bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and resides in Chicago and has a daughter who is getting her graduate degree in Madrid, Spain.

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What Women Should Know about Working At Accenture

We believe the future workforce is an equal one. Gender equality is a global issue, an essential element of an inclusive, innovative workplace and key to competitiveness. To that end, we are committed to supporting the goals and aspirations of our more than 170,000 women around the globe, as attracting, inspiring and advancing women is critical to Accenture’s future.

The Accenture Women’s Network helps women find a vision of success that’s right for them, bringing to life our “Defining success. Your way.” theme. Through this online forum, women can share experiences and obtain advice, insights and inspiration from other women at Accenture.

In addition, our Women’s Employee Resource Groups—we have more than 100 local women’s networking groups in 40 countries—help women at Accenture take advantage of a range of networking and development opportunities. With an eye to the future, we are purposeful and transparent about identifying high-performing women and including them in our succession plans.

We actively develop the next generation of women leaders through a number of initiatives, including our CEO-sponsored global executive leadership program for our most senior women; customized training, such as our Developing High Performing Women and Women & Client Centricity courses, to help women grow as effective managers of people and our business; and our annual celebration of International Women’s Day, which we host in key locations around the world with our clients.

We also offer a wide range of benefits to help our employees manage the demands of work and life, with specific benefits geared to working women. This includes up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave for birth mothers, as well as up to eight weeks of paid time off for other primary caregivers and two weeks of paid time off for secondary caregivers.

Among the many recognitions we have received for our efforts to support women include being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list; DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list; Anita Borg Top Companies for Women Technologists Leadership Index; Working Mother's Best Companies for Working Mothers list; the National Association for Female Executives Top 50 Companies for Executive Women list; and the LATINA Style 50 Best Companies for Latinas to Work For list.

Gender diversity statistics

Gender diversity information

We have set a new goal to achieve a gender-balanced workforce, with 50 percent women and 50 percent men, by 2025. This is another milestone in our journey to being the most inclusive and diverse company in the world. Our focus on attracting, inspiring and advancing women is critical to our future success, and we continue to set milestones on the path to gender equality.

Our Board of Directors includes 10 independent directors, three of whom are women, including our Lead Director.

Currently, women make up nearly 40 percent of our global workforce and 28 percent of Accenture executives (manager and above) are women. Women accounted for 30 percent of Accenture’s newly promoted managing directors in 2016, the largest percentage of women ever promoted to this level at Accenture and up from 29 percent in 2015.

We surpassed our goal to reach 40 percent women new hires worldwide by 2017 a year early. Currently, there are more than 170,000 women at Accenture - nearly 40 percent of our global workforce.

We are collaborating across business and government to further gender equality in teh workplace, with commitments that include the White House Equal Pay Pledge; Paradigm for Parity, which, with 35 other companies, establishes actions to achieve gender parity in the workplace by 2030; and Catalyst's CEO Champions for Change.

Programs, initiatives, groups

Unconscious bias training

Yes

Internal mentorship / sponsorship programs

Yes

Internal employee networking

Yes

Succession planning initiatives

Yes

Diversity initiatives / processes for recruiting

Yes

Diversity initiatives / processes for performance evaluation

Yes

Flexible working

Flexible working policies

We provide a variety of flexible work arrangements to help ensure that our employees can meet the demands of our business—making significant contributions to Accenture and our clients—while also being able to manage their personal lives.

For instance, nearly every employee has the opportunity to work remotely; to job-share; or to compress, reduce and/or flex their hours. In fact, the majority of our people have used one or more of our available flexible work arrangements during the past year, some on a regular basis. These arrangements are not based on level or organization, but on how and if a specific team or the project can accommodate these efforts.

Remote working

Yes

Part-time working

Yes

Percentage of your workforce that takes advantage of flexible working

75%

Parental Leave

Overview: Parental leave policies

We are committed to providing attractive career opportunities and flexibility for our employees throughout all stages of their lives. We support working parents — both new and existing by offering a variety of programs and benefits.

Accenture offers up to sixteen weeks of paid maternity leave for birth mothers in the United States, as well as up to eight weeks of paid time off for other primary caregivers and two weeks of paid time off for secondary caregivers, including adoptive parents and parents using a surrogate.

Accenture also has a number of programs to support additional leave. As well as nine paid holidays, our paid time off program encompasses paid personal time off and sick leave, providing flexibility for how, when and for what purpose it is taken. The number of days is based on career level and workforce, but ranges from 12 – 27 days per year. Also, our Future Leave program allows our people to take up to three months away from work with continued healthcare and insurance benefits and the assurance that they can return to work after their leave.

Paid maternity leave

Yes, 16 weeks

Unpaid maternity leave

Yes, Additional leave time varies, programs available are described above.

Paid paternity leave

Yes, 2 weeks

Unpaid paternity leave

Yes, Additional leave time varies, programs available are described above.

Adoptive paid leave

Yes, 8 weeks

Short-term disability benefits

Yes

Maternity-Related Benefits

Lactation facilities

Yes

Phased-in post-maternity return

Yes

Maternity leave coaching

Yes

Care-taking benefits

Care-taking benefits information

We support working parents—both new and existing by offering a variety of programs and benefits.

For example, we offer primary caregivers, both women and men, the opportunity to work locally for one year following their return from the birth or adoption of a child. Women have the opportunity to ship breast milk when traveling on business and the Accenture Medical Plan provides hospital grade breast pumps for new moms. We offer up to 80 hours per year for back-up dependent care for children, spouses or elderly family members and an additional 40 hours within the first year of a child’s birth or adoption.

Our Care Direct Partner provides parents with an online search tool for ongoing child care as well as prioritized enrollment in childcare centers. We also provide a personalized portal and one-on-one support for parents of children with childhood issues, such as ADHD and learning and developmental disabilities.